Buffalo! by Cleo Paskal

We are crouched, quiet, alert, hidden among the willows. Waiting. There are three of us, two city folk and our guide, Brad. Brad is squinting through the branches and sniffing. They are there. He knows they are there. So we wait.

It seems unreal. A child's fantasy of an African safari. You know the one, a wise local guide spots a herd in the distance and through stealth and skill manages to cut it off at the pass, getting you so close you can smell them.

But this IS real. And this is Canada. And we are waiting for the Buffalo.

There is only one place in the world this could be possible. That great, complex, unknown Wood Buffalo National Park. Everything about Wood Buffalo is big. Its 44,807 square kilometers contain the biggest fresh-water inland delta in the world. It has the world's biggest free-roaming herd of buffalo. Wood Buffalo is too big even for that Land of Big, the Northwest Territories. It spills over into Alberta and is Canada's biggest park. Wood Buffalo is bigger than Denmark.

But right now, that vastness has come down to me and my itchy foot. Last night, we camped at Sweetgrass Station, right at the edge of the delta. It had taken all day to get there. We left the northern gateway to the park, Fort Smith, in the morning. It took about two hours of driving to get us to the end of the road, a small cluster of houses that makes up the community of Peace Point, deep in the park. From there, we all piled into Brad's friend Charlie's motorboat and headed South along the one of the great watery highways of early Canada, the Peace River. Two hours later, we arrived at Sweetgrass Landing.

Since our ultimate destination was Sweetgrass Station, arriving at Sweetgrass Landing would imply that we were almost there. Yes, but 'almost there' is a very relative term in the big north. It was over an hour's hike to the canoe Brad has hidden in the woods. From there we set off along Sweetgrass Creek.

The Creek was narrow and had no current. It was a beautiful, raw, yet delicate Canada. The shore had all the usual towering trees but also clusters of pink wild roses and white strawberry flowers. Beaver lodges appeared with the regularity of a suburban subdivision. And the beavers themselves splashed with annoyance every time we surprised them at their gnawing.

None of the wildlife on the Creek was used to humans. Butterflies fluttered in for a look. Mother ducks, instead of just flying away or waddling up on shore, would try to distract us from their young by pretending to have a broken wing and so luring us towards them as more likely prey. When approached, they would suddenly 'recover' and fly off in triumph, quacking all the way.

Bald Eagles were not as coy. They would dive and screech with irritation if we canoed too close. Though one particularly majestic bald eagle was soundly put in his place when, in trying to dominate us, he made the mistake of flying too near the nests of some Franklin gulls. They then quite merrily chased him all over the sky.

And so we paddled. Once, a great grey owl, thick and silent as a huge moth, thumped off into the sky. And then, three hours later, we were there.

Almost.

We pulled the canoe out of the river and hiked about half-a-kilometer through the wood. And suddenly, the land opened up and we were standing at the edge of a huge, open meadow. They sun-yellowed grasses and open spaces looked somehow un-Canadian. It had the hot, sparse beauty of Africa. But we were not looking for elephant, lion, tiger, rhino, and antelope. We were looking for buffalo, wolf, lynx, bear and caribou.

We made camp near the ghostly remains of the fences and houses that once made up Sweetgrass Station.

Brad, a Métis, grew up on his father's trap line in the park. At one time or another, he worked surveying the rivers, building the roads and fighting fires in park. He knows Wood Buffalo as much as anyone can. And he told us about the houses. At one time, this area was used by Parks to round-up and inoculate the buffalo. Until they realized that the trauma caused by herding the animals by helicopter in the dead of winter was killing more than they were saving. So the Station was abandoned. Only three of the more than a dozen buildings remain. It was one of the many sudden Parks policy changes that Wood Buffalo would endure.

That night, I slept fitfully, getting used to the clear air and loud birds. I was thankful that the wolves were not howling, as they often do.

In the morning, climbing out of the tent, I saw a black smudge on the horizon.

Brad, already boiling water for the coffee, handed me his binoculars. Just as they snapped into focus, he said: "buffalo". And there they were. Big, shaggy, real. And far. "I think we can cut them off", he said. As a good local guide should. So we had our coffee and I looked some more. There were birds on some of their backs. And bounding calves.

All fuelled up, we left camp, cutting through the willows and long grass. Keeping downwind of the herd and in the shade. As silently as two city folks in new hiking boots can be. Though the guide in the beaten-up Airwalks was doing just fine. Quick and quiet we forge on. It was hot. Buggy. But we were on the hunt and nothing else mattered.

Then Brad motioned us to stop. Nothing. And so here we are, waiting. Tense. Listening. Itchy feet. Very itchy feet. Then suddenly, a shadow solidifies and passes through a pool of sunlight into a clearing. A buffalo. He's followed by another. And another. Three. Five. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. And gamboling behind, making their mothers' lives miserable the calves. Silent, huge, single file, they munch and march.

They cross the clearing and with just a slight rustle, once more disappear one by one into the willows. And they are gone.

Us city folk look at each other. Slightly stunned. Did that just happen? We dumbly move towards the path that will take us back to camp. Brad asks: "want to follow them?"

Before we can answer, another slight rustle. And there they are again. On the trail in front of us, upwind and heading towards another prairie. They don't see us. But we certainly see them. They trundle along, silent as a mirage. We follow them towards the prairie but they are too fast for us and we loose sight of them just before the path opens up. By the time we get to the edge of the grasslands two or three minutes later, they are gone. From here we can see for 10 kilometres across the open plains. In the distance far off we can three other herds. But ours is nowhere in sight. Nature's best magic trick.

It is a child's fantasy come true. Of a Canadian safari.